August 29, 2006, - 2:21 pm
Men “The New Women” Alert: Guyliner & Man Blouses?
By
Yet another sign that our society is pushing men to be the new women. Welcome to the “man glossary.”
The St. Petersburg Times has a distressing piece that details the “new” feminine male vocabulary.
New words, detailed in the article, include these from the Urban Dictionary (proof that in many cases country and middle American settings are far superior to urban ones):
* “guyliner“–eyeliner worn by “men.” FYI, if you wear eyeliner (or “guyliner”), you aren’t a guy.
* “man blouse,” defined as “shirt with a pattern or style that gives it a feminine quality. Again, if you wear it, you ain’t a guy.
* “mansitive,” which is used to describe a man who is extremely sensitive. Uh, there’s already a word for that. It’s “girlie-man.”
If you must use any of these words, if any of them describe you, YOU ARE NOT A MAN.
The St. Pete Times deludedly claims otherwise:
“The man part of these words is designed to reassure men that they won’t lose their largely extraneous bits when they do things that women have traditionally done in the past,” said Mark Simpson, the British journalist who coined the term metrosexual. “Castration anxiety is at the root of much of this.”
Nice try. But, again, anyone wearing a man-blouse and/or guyliner is neither man nor guy. A rose is a rose is a rose.
Socially, this is a confusing time. . . . As a recent series in the New York Times suggests, women are catching up with, and in some cases outpacing, men on college campuses and in corporate boardrooms.
Gender roles, once clearly defined, are more blurred than ever.
No longer perceived as the clearly dominant sex, men have
to assert their masculinity in other ways. Language is one way. . . .
“We’re all struggling with life in an age in which the ancient and traditional gender roles are reversed and commingled,” said Robin Lakoff , a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “Language, as always, gives evidence of social concerns.”
Yes, it is a confusing time, and blurring gender roles is a big problem. But, it’s not going to be helped one iota by new words and guyliner and man-blouses. Nor will it be helped by NFL linemen getting pedicures and manicures, and regular visits to spas:
Jason Kimbler thought it strange when his friend, Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive tackle Anthony McFarland, invited him to the Difference, which bills itself as Tampa’s first man spa.
“I am a boy from the South,” he said.
Since that first invitation, Kimbler, 29, has returned to the South Tampa spa twice. In some ways, he still finds the experience odd. Around his boys, he fudges answers to questions about his whereabouts, so as not to seem soft.
“I’m going to get my feet done or my hands done,” he tells them. He makes it clear: “I’m not going to get a pedicure and a manicure.”
Uh, that’s exactly what pedicures and manicures are, dude (or is that dud-ette?).
Even the guy who invented the word “metrosexual” thinks this is all a bad thing and that the words are cosmetic band-aids on a girlie-man problem of epidemic proportions:
“The insistence on the masculinity of handbags and eyeliner or child care does sound counterproductive. Like a kind of denial of the fact that in traditional terms, these things aren’t masculine at all.”
G-d–ho is still a “he”–help us. Like Paula Cole sang, “Where have all the cowboys gone?”
Tags: Anthony McFarland, California, Debbie Schlussel Yet, Defensive Tackle, Jason Kimbler, journalist, linguistics professor, Mark Simpson, National Football League, NFL, Paula Cole, Robin Lakoff, South Tampa spa, St. Petersburg Times, Tampa, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Bucs Defensive Tackle, the St. Pete Times, The New York Times, the St. Petersburg Times, University of California
Since I started checking out your site, these are the kinds of posts that I dig the most. Trademark Schussel. Besides Ivory soap and Johnson & Johnson shampoo, there just isn’t that much more a guy needs.
Jeremiah on August 29, 2006 at 3:56 pm